Idyllic Strolling in the Enchanted Garden
by AmeliaGallifrey
Summary: A story, read aloud. A little boy's astute observation. Fluffily bittersweet, Harry Potter-inspired oneshot. Alex/Tony.


Disclaimer: Anything recognisable is the property of JK Rowling, Val McDermid or Coastal Productions. This contains excerpts from Tales of Beedle the Bard, which is the creation of JK Rowling.

**Idyllic Strolling In The Enchanted Garden**

"Come on, let's have a story then!"

"Yeah, please, Mum! Read us a story!"

Alex glances around at the bodies slumped on the corner couches around her, then down at Ben, squeezed between her side and Tony.

"Yeah, c'mon!" Paula encourages, grinning, and Liam, sprawled like a bratty prince, or perhaps a Malfoy, gives her a wink.

"Fine. Who wants what?"

"Mum is the best at reading stories." Ben continues in a stage whisper.

"Yes, she's very good. Well, you are, Alex." Tony adds, with an air of innocence.

"Read something from Beedle!" Kevin exclaims like an excited kid.

"Fine!"

"I'll get it!" Ben leaps up, and runs to her darkened office, returning with the eponymous, blue-covered book in his hands. No-one bothers to ask why she keeps a copy in her office. He settles again between his mother and Tony, who contentedly smiles and slings an arm around the boys' slight shoulders.

"Okay. Which story?" Alex asks, flipping to the contents page. "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot?"

"Boring!" Kevin intones, miming a Weasley-ish yawn.

"Hey, I like that one!" Paula smacks him in the bicep.

"The Fountain of Fair Fortune? That's my favourite."

"You're such a girl, Mum." Ben mutters, making Tony grin, his bright, Dumbledore eyes twinkling over the crown of her son's head.

"I vote for that." Liam chimes, smiling at Alex in a way that sets a small alarm ringing in the back of her mind, but she pushes it away.

"The Warlock's Hairy Heart?"

"Too gory."

"Babbity Rabbity-"

"No way!" Liam, Ben and Kevin all pull matching nasty faces in unison.

"No, I never really understood that one either. The Tale of Three Brothers?"

"Hmm, maybe..."

"Nah, everyone's heard it so many times."

"Oh, fine! You're all so fussy! So... Fountain of Fair Fortune?"

"That's the one, Alex." Liam grins, and Alex looks, almost involuntarily, from him to Tony. He gives her the tiniest nod, his eyes amazing her again, for the thousandth time that day, that hour.

"Okay. Everyone settled?"

"Yep."

"Yes, Boss." Kevin shifts, stretching out his legs across Paula's lap, and although she scowls, she allows it.

"Here we go. The Fountain of Fair Fortune." Alex pauses, feeling like a presenter on a kid's TV show, but everyone is grinning at her, except for Tony, who is wearing that same expression he always does when she read aloud; like he's just noticed her, just realised something he hasn't thought before. It's a look that begins an unravelling somewhere in her stomach, and makes the blood rush to her cheeks. Just as she is about to begin, Ben interrupts.

"Have you read this one, Tony?"

"No, I haven't."

"It's about you, you know."

"Ben." Alex chastises precautionarily, but her son's face remains innocent.

"Well, it is! Sir Luckless, the dismal knight. That's you, Tony. And you're in it too, Mum."

Everyone is curiously quiet, and Alex feels five pairs of eyes on her.

"You're Amata, Mum. The witch with the broken heart."

A sharp, stabbing sting seizes Alex somewhere in the middle of her chest, and she pushes it down and away, hiding her eyes in the book, and attempting to ignore Tony's intense gaze on her face. She begins to read.

She is very, very good at reading stories, and soon everyone is appropriately spellbound. As she nears the end, her heart begins to constrict in her chest, and she acutely aware of each of them, eyes fixed on her, and of Tony, so close, embracing her son with such a heartbreakingly casual gesture.

'_...and Amata was the first to understand. Taking her wand, she drew from her mind all the memories of happy times spent with her vanished lover, and dropped them into the rushing waters.' _

She prays, as she reads, that no-one has noticed the pitch in her voice, but beside her Ben shifts minutely closer to her side, and beside him Tony moves, his heavy gaze falling on the side of her face. She reads on.

'_Sir Luckless bowed, and gestured Amata toward the fountain, but she shook her head. The stream had washed away all regret for her lover, and she saw now that he had been cruel and faithless, and that it was happiness enough to be rid of him.'_

No-one misses the catch in her voice this time, and Alex blinks furiously, trying to dispel the tears that have sprung to her eyes. She takes a quick glance around, and sees Liam, eyes dropping to his lap as she looks at him, Paula and Kevin still and wearing identical sympathetic expressions, and, in a half-second glance, Tony: blue eyes blazing on her in a hard, intense and unreadable look.

'"_Good sir, you must bathe, as a reward for all your chivalry!" She told Sir Luckless._

'_So the Knight clanked forth in the last rays of the setting sun, and bathed in the Fountain of Fair Fortune, astonished that he was the chosen one of hundreds and giddy with his incredible luck.'_

Alex's heart begins to race at what is coming, and she thinks of Ben's characteristically simple and brilliant observation, knowing that everyone else is thinking of it too, including Tony, who is still watching her closely.

'_As the sun fell below the horizon, Sir Luckless emerged from the waters with the glory of his triumph upon him, and flung himself in his rusted armour at the feet of Amata, who was the kindest and most beautiful woman he had ever beheld. Flushed with success, he begged for her hand and her heart, and Amata, no less delighted, realised that she had found a man worthy of them.'_

A beat, two, of silence passes, in which Alex's heart slams in her chest, and no-one moves.

'_The three witches and the knight set off down the hill together, and all four led long and happy lives, and none of them ever knew or suspected that the Fountains' waters carried no enchantment at all.'_

There is an oppressive silence, in which Alex blinks back ever more tears, and then Kevin releases a deeply held breath.

"Nice one, Ben. Really good call."

And then everyone is laughing, and the tension is dispelled just like that, Ben grinning happily and Alex, smiling but still terrified, dares to glance over her son's head at Tony.

He's doing it again, that same look he gave her in the interrogation room during that awful case; a quiet, wistfully fond look that she can't seem to read, his blue eyes narrowed and his mouth in a tight, slight smile. She blinks, hard, the colour flooding her cheeks again, and he smiles a little more, while everyone else laughs.


End file.
